Hi Plym, forgive me for intruding onto your board, I should have pm'd you but I'm not tech savvy enough to do that! I've probably got it wrong but I thought that I read in the past that you reside in or near the fair township of Bromley? If so, its probably been discussed here before that there is a footie themed film called "The Bromley Boy's" I saw it last night and, although it was panned by some film critics, I found it to be engaging entertainment. On the subject of film there is another excellent one called "Marvellous" about a Stoke City kit-man which I found excellent. If you haven't seen it yet it may be worth getting the dvd, you can always ask some young nipper to show you how to load and play it. I wont go as far as to say these films wold please that old curmudgeon "Sensible" but you never know! Seen your guys a few times this season so I am a grudging sort of fan of Argyle as my Calgary based son supports them. So all the best for the rest of the season. Cheers, Milton. PS Don't believe everything BC tells you about the bears.
Hi Milton.....The book "The Bromley Boys" is still available in local shops.....used to watch the 'Lilywhites' when I first came this way back in the 1950/60's...top amateur Isthmian league football in those days.
I feel Theresa May has flipped into a fantasy world after last nights chat to the nation. Blaming the whole of Parliament for the Brexit mess....complaining that they were stopping Brexit by not agreeing to her meaningful vote No xxxx saying that she was standing up for the public especially the 17.4 million that voted out.....have we just woken up to a Bobby Ewing moment in the shower and none of this mess has ever happened. The EU will not give her past the date of the EU elections in May....not her ill thought out date in June.
I keep telling you that you voted out along with the other 17.4 million but you never were told what out meant. There is a deal on the table that is the only one there is so it must be the one we use to leave. Terresa is right to say MPs are buggering about and it is their fault the leaving is so difficult. They keep voting that they don't want this or they don't want that and if that isn't delaying matters then what is? You have Jeremy Corbyn complaining nobody is asking him then he walks out of a meeting where he would get to say what he does want all because he doesn't like somebody who is sat at the table in the shape of Chuka Umunna. Who he sits next to is obviously far more important than the future of the UK. It seems to me that no matter which way people voted nobody appears to like anything on offer at all. Of course there could always be another vote to see if people still like the idea of leaving at all. Lets face it, democracy isn't exactly being served with what is going on now is it so why not go the whole hog and do it again just to be sure. If the exit mob are so sure they were right they should have nothing to fear from another vote which is bound to go their way again isn't it. Perhaps then it would focus the minds of the people whose job it is to achieve it.
The whole thing is a comedy of errors. Errors, lies, mistakes and stupidity. Cameron should never have allowed a referendum just to try to silence the Brexit extremists in his party. If there was to be a referendum, it should have required a sensible majority, not one vote potentially wrecking the economy for a generation. The Leave campaign shouldn't have been allowed to get away with barefaced lies and electoral fraud. If the referendum was lost, there should have been an attempt to reach a cross-party consensus of what to ask the EU for in Parliament before exercising Article 50 instead of pandering to the ERG. That should have focused on the economy, not immigration. IF the ERG want to leave the Conservaties and join UKIP, so be it, that's their natural place and good luck to them there. With a plan before we started, based on the economy where there's common ground with the EU, hopefully we wouldn't have run out of time like this.
UKIP have been taken over.....the ERG would need to join the new....Brexit Party....to continue their fight for the majorities wish to be up held....out with no ties to the EU's apron strings.
Apron strings? No access to a market of 500 million people. A catastrophe for high end manufacturing in the UK that relies on export markets and EU supply chains. A catastrophe for labour intensive, low value industries that rely on willing and able European workers. A catastrophe for the hugely successful UK financial services sector which can now be frozen out by Frankfurt and Paris.
One of my birthday presents recently was a gift of a trip up the Shard and a meal at a Marco Pierre White's restaurant for two. The restaurant experience we did at his London Steakhouse in Chelsea (very nice) afterwards we walked down to the Thames and crossed to the south bank and walk down as far as we could to what must be the biggest construction site in Europe...the Battersea Power Station site development....42 acres of high price land on the river bank near central London.....bought in 2006 by a Malaysian group and divided up into seven projects of Homes, Offices, Shops, Restaurants and a Park. It cost at the time £400 million to purchase. It became an heritage site in 1980 and has been unused since decommissioning thirty years ago....I expect it will look fantastic when finished....the only problem for me is those four huge ugly chimneys which have to stay...being a heritage site. Had to knock them down and rebuild them to bring them up to health standards. I think every second scaffolding pole in the UK must be on that site at present. In hindsight who in his right mind would build a giant coal fired power station in central London (1930's).....with a continuing procession of coal barges feeding it 24/7....pollution levels must of been atrocious in those days....reminds me of the late 1950's and the smog we had to deal with...took hours to get to work and to get home...it's a wonder we survived. PS...The Shard trip we will do later....we did notice last week as we walked along the Thames that the top of the Shard was lost in clouds....good job we weren't planning the trip on the same day.
Talking about the 1950's and the smog....as I was above....my memory can remember how some work mates in those days actually walked home from New Cross Station along the railway track as far as Dartford....(16 miles as the crow flies).....because of the pea-soup conditions the train drivers couldn't see the signals, so no trains ran....so all the power got turned off, making it safe to walk along the track. I used to get a lift off an older fellow and we had got lost on Blackheath (open heath area) one evening and ended up going across the grass, couldn't find the road (but was aware that there was a pond somewhere)....some chap pulled out in front of us....and seem to know where he was going....so we just got behind him....every thing was going well...until he stopped....embarrassingly we found out he had pulled into his driveway and was getting out of his car when we pulled up behind him.
I watched Newsnight last night (June 3rd)....Emily Maitlis was interviewing Philip Hammond.....they were discussing.... 'poverty'.....Maitlis quoted the Joseph Rowntree Foundation....who commented that 1.5 million experienced destitution in 2017 in the UK.......and she also quoted that the United Nations had cited independent experts saying 14 million people in the UK .....a fifth of the population....live in poverty. Hammond said...that the Government had worked to tackle the causes of poverty and rejected the United Nations report that austerity had increased poverty. BBC news item...Tues 4/6/18. It occurred to me that this man who controlled the purse strings of the country had continued an austerity policy that had been started by Cameron's Government in 2010 ....had not an inkling of how the poorer in our society lived from his affluent life style.....and his attitude left me with a cold feeling down my spine....and reminded me why I don't vote Tory......and why Corbyn's Labour Party are so pointless as an opposition.....let's see what happens on Thursday at the Peterborough by-election.
Depends what you consider is poverty doesn't it. Can't afford a foreign holiday, a top range mobile, Sky sport package, huge TV set, Car, the best of furnishings? How many of these people are starving to death? A meagre lifestyle is one thing but poverty is quite another. A child living on the streets of one country who has access to food is better off than one who lives on a dump in India and picks over the trash. The one in India is better off than the one in Africa in the outback who doesn't even have a trash heap when the drought strikes for 10 years. Now all that sounds harsh but it is only to demonstrate that poverty is in the eyes of where you happen to be rather than complete deprivation. That is not to say I support a millionaire lifestyle for some when others have very little.
As Sensible says, those figures are "relative poverty" ie no XBox and no foreign holiday. Until Brexit comes, we have very low unemployment, fuelled in part by EU workers staying away. I have no problem with taxes supporting children, the genuinely sick and the elderly, but a good proportion of these need to get a job. I saw a woman pleading poverty the other day. Multiple children of course which prevented her working. She was pleading the stress of looking after her own kids. She opined that there should be someone people like her could ring to send someone round to care for them when she needed a night out in the pub or at the bingo to de-stress. Not on my taxes thank you.
As I've said before and I'll probably say again, if you can't afford children, don't have them. It's simple as. And that doesn't just refer to being able to afford them financially but also emotionally and in terms of the cost of time. Its not like contraception is difficult to obtain.
I have a Relative who calls her benefits her wages and complains if they are not put into her bank account on time. She has 5 kids and has never done a stroke of work in her life. I don't mind paying for kids generally but I do object when they breed for breeding sake to avoid having to get a job. Have a couple is ok and even don't work when you are bringing them up. I don't agree with latchkey kids and one or other of the parents should be there when they get home from school. The relative with the 5 doesn't even look after her kids full time and dumps them on her parents as often as possible. Notice there is no mention of a partner there. Contributions from dad is zero in all cases. Yes they are multiple.
My Dear Mr. Archer, You have a point there. Your Son in Calgary has a good football CFL Team to watch, and and a Hockey Team. Say Hi to him from just West of the Rocky Mountains. Regards BC
Well we get Zero for our son who you know is very poorly and in a wheel chair every day is a bonus and we dont ask for anything, when we do we got to fight for every bit as the scum get it first .. Luckily enough we care and have enough to support him, i feel sorry for the ones who have not got enough money, i keep on at them and demand things get done , just back now from another appointment, they forget i have to work as well. The system is crap and broken, Scrap welfare totally, we dont get a vehicle on mobility all we got was the vat back on a VW caravelle that had to be adapted, now the emlectric wheel chair will soon not fit in the back as my lad is growing, they dont look at that when they supply a 4-5 k chair, so we now either get another van with the floor lowered or pay to have this one done approx 5-8 k , Not to worry he is happy and cared for.. rant done for now
And that's the point Joe. Too many in the system generally who can fend for themselves but don't, which takes money from those who really need it. And it may be controversial, but I think you shouldn't be penalised if you happen to have or used to have a higher income. If you earn a lot you pay a lot in tax and therefore when hard times come, you deserve your share of benefits just the same as the rest. Otherwise it's double jeopardy: pay a lot, get nothing back.
